Bill Cheng is working on his next novel, something "very different."(Photo: Joe Orecchio)

THE AUTHOR

Quick bio: Cheng, 29, the son of Chinese immigrants, grew up in Queens, N.Y, earned an MFA in writing at Hunter College, and has worked in non-profit development offices. He and his wife live in Brooklyn.

Inspiration: The music of the Delta blues by the likes of Big Bill Broonzy,Lightnin' Hopkins and Blind Lemon Jefferson, which "I learned to love while teaching myself guitar in high school. The music may be old, but I feel it's still relevant to how people feel today."

On writing about Mississippi without ever visiting it: "Some of it was research, but that takes you only so far. The rest is imagination. You have to do it with conviction."

On a Chinese-American novelist imagining African-American characters: "All I can say is that's the job of fiction: to imagine the life of others … I didn't want to write about my own experiences. My life isn't all that interesting."

What's next: A novel "that will be very different. It's not set in the South or the past. It's coming out of my interest in scientific literacy."